Morning clouds depress
Inspiration happy thoughts
Sun comes out hurrah
Haiku: Writer’s Block
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The Senior Transportation Connection
I quit driving myself – abandoned my car
Found I’ve been transported to a new world
Peopled by those who still have destinations
And when needing a ride call the S.T.C.
We help each other putting on seatbelts
Check on how each one’s day is unfolding
And sometimes something magical happens
When we tell our stories
Not long ago on one of my trips
A second passenger boarded the van
A smallish woman in a neat knitted cap
With whom I clicked while helping buckle her in
I saw a riot of colorful flowers
Grass, vines and green trees graced her yard
She told about her plants outside and inside
I soon sensed we were kindred souls
And so began our discussion of plants
Like some women have about their grandchildren
She mentioned her birthday coming up in December
I asked her the date and she said “the ninth”
I felt a tingle of recognition
Felt my joy bubbling up
So I replied “Just what I expected.
That date is my birthday, too!”
New Address: The Ocean
Stepping into a river one time – then again
And finding it’s just not the same
Later musing maybe it’s no river at all
But a deep ocean I now call my home
Maybe my views of the world and my life
No longer fit into seventeen syllables
Maybe climate change has stripped the dawn sky
Of my beloved pink cloud inspiration
I want to address the whole world-wide family
All swimming in rivers, navigating strong currents
New generations, new fears, new over-comings
Some things borrowed from elders, many more all their own
That deep ocean I now claim as my address
Swelling with challenge for my elder years
Requires new perspectives, new understandings
That oddly enough, bring me peace
Haiku: Hope Is the Thing With Feathers
Changes are daunting
Signs of aging surround me
Not for faint of heart
Surprises yet charm
Emanating from strangers
Delight and joy
Days that begin grey
May hold moments of newness
I’m not giving up
Speed Bump
Six years ago it all began
Sleep-canceling pain in my right knee
No stranger to old-age infirmity
I sought help
I’d only been in town a month
Few physicians on my speed dial yet
An orthopedist seemed a likely choice
My son steered me to one who treated him
The doctor listened to my tale
Proclaimed the problem not my knee at all
Inflamed nerve from spine was sparking pain
His diagnosis was sciatica.
Prescription a dose-pak of pills
Worked like a charm and I could sleep again
My new internist said he has sciatica as well
Calls it a speed bump when pain slows him down
I’ve traveled freely ever since
Until a speed bump’s bad pain road-blocked me
I called my internist to prescribe
Same meds did the trick again.
And here is the part that I love best
The medicine’s generic and so old
It only costs $1.99
Aging has its benefits
Intersections
You’re starting off on a brand-new decade
Charting your path along your own lines
Finding your way to the world that awaits you
Charged with energy, confidence and faith
Your family behind you as your new journey begins
I remember well the first time I met you
Wrapped in a red blanket I think still exists
My role as grandmother began in that moment
I had my learning to do just like you
As time went by we taught one another
When you took me to lunch a few weeks ago
You asked my advice on where we should eat
We agreed on a restaurant and were on our way
Only not in the direction that I remembered
I was quite lost but deferred to you
When we arrived it was the same restaurant
But a different location from the one I suggested
I had not realized that it was a chain
Though our minds worked together toward a common goal
I thought time might be upon us to change place as leaders
Written on the occasion of my grandson’s twentieth birthday
